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Minn. prep runner praised for aiding injured rival

Josh Ripley was a mile into his
cross-country race and running hard when he saw a problem: another
runner, lying hurt and bleeding from a 3-inch gash left by another
runner's spikes.

Ripley veered over and scooped up the younger runner, carrying
him half a mile to help in a snap decision that cost him any chance
to win the race but drew praise for sportsmanship.

"He just picked me up and ran with me," said Mark Paulauskas,
a Lakeville South freshman who needed 20 stitches in a hospital
emergency room to close the wound. "I think it's amazing. ... He
stopped his race just to help me."

Ripley, a junior at Andover High School, told the St. Paul
Pioneer Press the decision to help during
the junior varsity meet Sept. 16 was instinct. He described hearing
Paulauskas screaming in pain.

"I just knew I needed to help him," Ripley said. "I think a
lot of other runners would have, too, had they realized the
situation. But they were really focused on their race. I just
couldn't leave him there."

Carrying the 5-foot-5, 100-pound Paulauskas wasn't a problem for
the 6-foot-plus Ripley.

Paulauskas' father, Gene, wrote a letter to Ripley's high school
principal about the act and also wrote a thank-you letter to
Ripley.

"It showed a great deal of sportsmanship and kindness for a
runner who was on a different team to stop, forget about his own
race and help Mark out," Gene Paulauskas said. "Especially
nowadays where everyone is kind of me-first. ....To assist a kid he
doesn't know from Adam, that's a pretty neat kid."
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